Being a convincing actor is about more than just crying on cue and perfecting your angry
stares.
Actors also need to be trained to speak with foreign accents for many of their roles -- whether
it's to conceal their own native tongue or to convince audiences they hail from a whole
different homefront.
In the case of these Hollywood stars, their dialect coaches must've left something to
be desired because their terrible on-screen accents will probably never disappear from
their blooper reels.
Gerard Butler
He may have been born and raised in Scotland, but Gerard Butler doesn't get to play Scottish
characters as often as he might like, which means there are many examples of him attempting
to sound American and failing spectacularly.
Perhaps no effort has been quite as tragic as 2010's The Bounty Hunter, in which he has
the darndest time trying to make use of his hundreds of dialect sessions.
"And what I do is I hunt down criminals.
Idiots who jumped bail, specifically."
Oddly enough, his Irish accent in P.S.
I Love You isn't much better either.
"I would like to apologize to the nation of Ireland for completely abusing your accent."
Keanu Reeves
There's one thing Keanu Reeves can do better than anyone in the entire acting business:
"WOAH."
But playing a Brit is just not in his skillset.
He proved as much when he starred in Bram Stoker's Dracula and made everyone laugh for
all the wrong reasons with his faux English affectation.
"I've seen many strange things already.
Bloody wolves chasing me through some blue inferno."
Director Francis Ford Coppola later blamed himself for the famously poor performance
in the 1992 drama, telling Entertainment Weekly:
"We knew that it was tough for him to affect an English accent.
He tried so hard.
That was the problem, actually—he wanted to do it perfectly and in trying to do it
perfectly it came off as stilted."
It definitely says something that he was able to upstage that hairdo.
"Yes sir.
I will give it my full attention."
John Malkovich
If you're going to put on a Russian accent, at least try not to sound like a KGB cartoon.
That's the lesson John Malkovich apparently did not learn before he became a Soviet gangster
in Rounders.
The outrageous accent is not only extra phlegm-y, but it borders on the insane.
"Pay that man his money."
Apparently, even Malkovich knew he wasn't delivering a quality depiction there because
co-star Matt Damon later revealed …
"And he looks at me and he goes, 'I'm a terrible actor.'"
But, hey, at least we got this Damon-ism out of the deal.
"If you don't have my money, then you are mine."
Brad Pitt
An Irish accent is incredibly difficult to fake, and Brad Pitt knows all about that.
The actor trained with a dialect coach to get his dialect down pat …
"Accents have never been my strong point, so, it was uh…
I put a lot of work into it."
But in The Devil's Own, the Hollywood heartthrob failed to present that patented Irish lilt.
"The meat looks delicious, what is it?"
"It's… it's corned beef and cabbage.
I thought that's all you ate over there."
Hey, at least he knows how to speak Italian in a pinch.
"Gratzie."
Kevin Costner
Robin Hood: Princes of Thieves wasn't exactly a critical darling, and it hasn't really stood
the test of time with audiences, either.
But Kevin Costner's terrible take on a British accent in the movie is still absolutely unforgettable.
"If I must, I will take you a piece at a time."
Hey, it might not have even been a British accent for all we know because he sounds more
like a West Coast dude indulging in the Southern California sun than a man rummaging through
the forests of Nottingham.
Except he's totally supposed to be English.
"This is English courage."
Cameron Diaz
Gangs of New York is a beautiful film anchored by one heck of a performance from Daniel Day-Lewis,
but there's no question that Cameron Diaz's terrible accent tends to take you out of it.
While there are moments in the 2002 film when leading man Leonardo DiCaprio also seems to
forget to flip his accent switch, Diaz rarely turns hers on—and when she does, it's not
good.
"Oh I ain't started working yet."
Not only does she not sound Irish, but she doesn't sound like she's from 1863 either.
"Maybe when you're aiming a little straighter."
Angelina Jolie
There are a lot of terrible aspects of Oliver Stone's Alexander, but Angelina Jolie's wacky
accent is one of the most bizarre elements of the whole movie.
"Oh.
Now who is exaggerating?"
To be fair to her, Colin Farrell decided to keep his native Irish tongue while starring
as the title Greek conqueror, and Val Kilmer and Jared Leto also followed suit for some
strange reason.
So, that left Jolie all by her lonesome, trying to bring some Macedonian realness to her portrayal
of Olympia, but she sounds more like a Russian mafiosa than the real deal.
Jolie might've proven herself as having a healthy dialect spread with her British tones
in Tomb Raider and her French-Cuban prose in A Mighty Heart, but this is one flub that
won't soon be forgotten.
"Forgive me."
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